Libraries, SDK's

I'm thinking of starting to get more into C or C++ since I'm getting more into electronics and hardware. But I'm having a difficult time learning libraries and SDK's. I don't even know where to begin installing them, can anyone help me with this?

Let's say I want to build a Spotify app using the Spotify C API , how would I begin after I downloaded libspotify?

You simply tell your linker to include that library file. And you #include the library's in the source files in which you want to use the library.

In general in Windows, you will get three kinds of files: a header file (.h), a static library file (.lib), and a dynamically linked library file (DLL, as a .dll). The actual functions that you want to use are in the DLL. But writing code to use a DLL is cumbersome, involving function pointers, etc, so they provide wrapper functions in the static library file that access the DLL for you. So then the general model is that you build your executable which links in the static library at compile time and then your program will use the DLL at run-time.

Now, about explaining to you how to link that static library into your project. I'm sorry, but we cannot do that. In fact, it's impossible for us to tell you that. The reason is because you have not told us what IDE you're using. The details are different in each IDE (integrated development environment, what most people call a "compiler", though the compiler is only one small component of an IDE). In a GUI IDE, somewhere there are project options or properties and somewhere among those options or properties there is one which lists the static libraries to be linked in. Find that option/property and add your new library to it.

You simply tell your linker to include that library file. And you #include the library's in the source files in which you want to use the library.

In general in Windows, you will get three kinds of files: a header file (.h), a static library file (.lib), and a dynamically linked library file (DLL, as a .dll). The actual functions that you want to use are in the DLL. But writing code to use a DLL is cumbersome, involving function pointers, etc, so they provide wrapper functions in the static library file that access the DLL for you. So then the general model is that you build your executable which links in the static library at compile time and then your program will use the DLL at run-time.

Now, about explaining to you how to link that static library into your project. I'm sorry, but we cannot do that. In fact, it's impossible for us to tell you that. The reason is because you have not told us what IDE you're using. The details are different in each IDE (integrated development environment, what most people call a "compiler", though the compiler is only one small component of an IDE). In a GUI IDE, somewhere there are project options or properties and somewhere among those options or properties there is one which lists the static libraries to be linked in. Find that option/property and add your new library to it.

I guess I'll just wait till after my finals to start coding C, thanks for the information though.